Fiery crash melts vital San Francisco highway

A vital stretch of highway for San Francisco commuters collapsed on Sunday after a gas tanker truck crashed and ignited flames that shot more than 60 metres (200 feet) into the air.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom quickly ruled out sabotage or terrorism, but said the accident shows that the region’s infrastructure remains dangerously vulnerable.

Flames on a lower ramp melted steel beams supporting the upper deck of a highway on the Oakland/Emeryville side. This leads to the double-decker Bay Bridge, which connects the heavily populated East Bay to San Francisco.

The crashed truck was carrying about 32,500 litres of gasoline and the heat generated by the fire exceeded 1510°C, according to officials. As the steel structure weakened, a concrete slab fell onto the ramp below.

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Wake-up call

“The damage is significant, there will be disruptions to traffic, but it will be limited to the two ramps,” says Will Kempton, director of the California Department of Transportation.

Newsom says the accident is a wake-up call about vulnerability from natural and man-made disaster. “These unfortunate events are opportunities to remind people that our infrastructure is not where it needs to be,” he told reporters at the California Democrats’ annual convention in San Diego, US.

Although the cause of the crash is not yet known, the California Highway Patrol says there was no evidence the driver had been using drugs or alcohol. But Kempton says the vehicle was “allegedly travelling at a high rate of speed or over the speed limit at least and went out of control.”

Light traffic

The truck driver was hospitalized with burns and was reported to be in stable condition. Officials say there was little traffic as it was the middle of the night, preventing further injuries and accidents.

The two ramps are used by nearly 500,000 vehicles each day, according to the California Highway Patrol. Many workers use the highway to travel to work in San Francisco from their homes in the East Bay, although a subway system is also available.

The Bay Bridge, around a half mile from the closed interchange, remains open and is accessible from another highway. A section of the bridge collapsed during an earthquake in the 1989, but was reopened 30 days later.